Rasam, a taste of history and tradition

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Most of them, be it Dilip Vengsarkar or Sunil Gavaskar, asked for soup. Once they tasted the rasam, soup was a forgotten chapter.

Chennai:

Everybody goes through food blues, which is mostly due to moods or health reasons and one needs comfort food to bounce back. To soothe the nerves and bring back the zing factor, one needs a dish which can pep one up in no time. Being on a holiday, is no fun if one falls ill and feels low. I can recollect my hotel days and the food we served when some of our celebrity guests fell sick.

Most of them, be it Dilip Vengsarkar or Sunil Gavaskar, asked for soup. Once they tasted the rasam, soup was a forgotten chapter. Also, our southern men, be it Madhavan, Sivaramakrishnan or Srikkanth, are great fans of this concoction, be it molagurasam, Mysore rasam or nellikai/ pineapple rasam. The history of rasam is as interesting as the rasam itself. Rasam is also called chaaru, saaru or kabir soup, traditionally prepared in south India, with the base being either tamarind, gooseberry, lemon or tomato juice. It even caught the fancy of the British when they ruled here. Thus, mulligatawny soup or rasam became an international dish.

The Indian cuisine is closely related to Indian history, with each region developing a unique set of dishes, using diverse ingredients. Rasam was discovered during the Pandiyan times according to ancient tales. When the ruling king’s son fell ill, refusing to eat anything that was fed to him, a decree was sent out that a dish prepared which the prince would eat, would earn a bag of gold coin for the cook. Karunas, a humble Brahmin priest, decided to participate rooting for the bounty. He took it upon him to try his luck with a dish he had invented. He got hold of locally available materials and seasonal vegetables like lemon, curry leaves, gooseberries, pineapple, black pepper, salt, turmeric and ground them together before boiling it in water. It turned out to be an appetising concoction, and thus when the prince was served with this, he not only recovered, but made this soup a state favourite. Thus, gooseberry, pineapple rasam found its way into the royal kitchens and became a part of Indian history.

Thanks to the Portuguese traders who brought pineapple seeds to India from the Moluccas in 1548, and passed it on to the Eastern states, which profusely cultivated the fruit in their region as a symbol of good health and luck.